German authorities are investigating allegations that soldiers in the country’s most elite honor guard shouted neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic slogans on a bus near here.

Reporting an incident that took place in mid-May, eyewitnesses said that seven soldiers who were apparently drunk began shouting anti-Semitic and xenophobic slogans on a bus on their way back to their barracks near Bonn.

The witnesses said the soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes for an evening out, shouted “Jews should be gassed” and “foreigners out.”

The police are also investigating claims that the soldiers physically attacked one passenger who tried to quiet them down. When the soldiers got out of hand, the bus driver reportedly closed the doors to the bus and called the police, who held five soldiers for questioning.

Two of the soldiers got out of the bus before the police arrived, but they, too, were later brought in for questioning. The soldiers were members of Germany’s most prestigious honor guard, which greets foreign heads of state.

A spokesman for prosecutors in Bonn announced that charges would be pressed against one soldier at least, and that the investigation would continue regarding the other six.

A military spokesman said that although the matter was now in the hands of the police and the state prosecution, the army would “take all the necessary disciplinary measures.”

Such incidents, said the spokesman, were not representative of the German armed forces.